diff --git a/src/.config/nushell/.gitignore b/src/.config/nushell/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..922f26c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/.config/nushell/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+zoxide.nu
diff --git a/src/.config/nushell/config.nu b/src/.config/nushell/config.nu
index 20ec37d..2962b97 100644
--- a/src/.config/nushell/config.nu
+++ b/src/.config/nushell/config.nu
@@ -713,4 +713,5 @@ $env.config = {
     ]
 }
 
-source ~/.config/nushell/zoxide.nu
+const zoxide_conf = "~/.config/nushell/zoxide.nu"
+source $zoxide_conf
diff --git a/src/.config/nushell/env.nu b/src/.config/nushell/env.nu
index b0eec0b..1bf6750 100644
--- a/src/.config/nushell/env.nu
+++ b/src/.config/nushell/env.nu
@@ -95,4 +95,6 @@ $env.NU_PLUGIN_DIRS = [
 # To load from a custom file you can use:
 # source ($nu.default-config-dir | path join 'custom.nu')
 
-zoxide init nushell | save -f ~/.config/nushell/zoxide.nu
+if (which zoxide | length) > 0 {
+    zoxide init nushell | save -f ~/.config/nushell/zoxide.nu
+}
diff --git a/src/.config/nushell/zoxide.nu b/src/.config/nushell/zoxide.nu
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ab9b439
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/.config/nushell/zoxide.nu
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# DUMMY FILE for systems that do not have zoxide installed
+
+# nu doesn't like sourcing files conditionally, so we can't just have it ignore if zoxide.nu does not exist
+# watch issue: https://github.com/nushell/nushell/issues/8214
+
+# zoxide will overwrite this if it exists